UTPB students to decide fee use for football

Published 5:51 pm, Monday, April 7, 2014

ODESSA — The fate of a $35 student fee at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin will be decided by the end of the day (Tuesday for online).

Voting in a football referendum that began last Wednesday was originally scheduled to end Friday afternoon, now concludes this evening. Travis Woodward, UTPB director of Communication and Special Events, said in a press release voting was extended to “give students an additional opportunity to exercise their right to participate in the voting process.”

“A YES vote on the referendum is a YES for UTPB Football at NO additional cost to YOU,” posters hanging around campus declare. The Student Senate, which formally supports the creation of a football team, hung the posters.

A ‘yes’ vote would authorize UTPB to repurpose an existing $35 per semester student union fee into an athletics fee. A ‘no’ vote means the fee would continue to support student union activities and operations. Full-time students taking 15 semester hours also currently pay a $180 athletics fee per semester.

Peyton Slater, a Dallas sophomore and member of the Student Senate, worked Monday at the referendum voting table in the Mesa Building lobby. As students walked by, she asked if they had cast their votes yet.

Slater, also a member of the swim team, supports the fee switch and said she believes the team will increase school spirit and instill a sense of tradition in UTPB students.

“It’s kind of like we’re missing out on something other schools have,” she said.

UTPB President David Watts said UTPB is the only public university west of Interstate 35 that doesn’t play football. A football team is the last intercollegiate sport UTPB could add in this region of the country, Watts said.

Odessa freshman Edward Sparks said he doesn’t care if UTPB has a football team. Sparks and three of his friends all said they voted against changing the fee. In a football-loving city like Odessa, Sparks said, adding a football team would overshadow other athletics and academic programs.

Sparks said he has heard about the referendum from news outlets and his fraternity brothers but has heard very little from the university itself.

“I wish they would actually tell us more,” he said, adding that a forum or a document with the specifics of the plan would be beneficial for students.

Watts said students were notified of the vote in a campus-wide email.

The money collected from the fee would be more than $1.9 million from fiscal year 2014 through the first four years of the Division II program, according to UT Regents materials. As a condition, students cannot be assessed any additional athletic fees during the implementation of the football program, according to previous Reporter-Telegram reports.

UTPB must raise $9.5 million by the end of the year to cover the first five years of operations, according to a past UTPB press release.

Watts said anecdotal evidence seems to indicate students are “overwhelmingly” in favor of repurposing the fee. There is not a back-up funding plan in case the referendum doesn’t pass, Watts said, adding officials would rather wait and see the results.

The plan to add a football team was approved by the UT System Board of Regents in December, and is a part of the university’s plan to become an increasingly residential school.

“UTPB is attempting, and I think we’re achieving, our goal of being a full, residential university where ... any young person might chose to spend four years or so with us,” Watts said.

Watts said the program is being eagerly supported by the community and is “within sight” of the fundraising goal.